Intentions to Marry, 1899 January-June

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840415, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke at Archives NZ Wellington (now located in the National Library reading room), September 5 2025

1899 is bound in two volumes, January-June and July-December.

Page 398

District of Dunedin Quarter ending 31 March 1899 Registrar William Joseph Hall

No	Date of Notice	Names and Surnames of Parties	BDM Match	Condition	Calling or Profession	Age	Dwelling Place	Length of Residence	Marriage Place	Folio	Consent	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
93	21 March 1899	Ernest Smith Kate Alice Barton	Ernest Smith Kate Alice Barton 💍 1899/5498	Bachelor Spinster	Tailor	25 years 23 years	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 18 months	In the house of James Nisbet, St. Andrew Street	99/960		21 March 1899	Revd Wm Fell, Congregational Minister
94	22 March 1899	John William Herbert Haynes Clementina Grant Burns	John William Herbert Haynes Clementina Grant Burns 💍 1899/1204	Bachelor Spinster	Accountant	32 years 23 years	Dunedin Dunedin	12 years 23 years	In the house of Arthur John Burns, Heriot Row	99/950		22 March 1899	Revd William Banner, Presbyterian Minister
95	22 March 1899	David Kinnear Smith Annie Donlon	David Kinnear Smith Annie Donlon 💍 1899/958	Bachelor Spinster	Miller	25 years 24 years	Opoho Dunedin	24 years 24 years	In the house of Revd William Hewitson	99/940		22 March 1899	Revd W Hewitson, Presbyterian Minister
96	22 March 1899	Alexander Congalton Warrington Amelia Harriet Warrington	Alexander Congalton Amelia Harriett Warrington 💍 1899/2724	Bachelor Spinster	Baker	26 years 25 years	Dunedin Dunedin	6 weeks 25 years	In the house of John Warrington, Stafford Street	99/2799		22 March 1899	Revd R.R.M. Sutherland, Presbyterian Minister
97	24 March 1899	Elijah Henry Harrop Edith Eliza Armstrong	Elijah Henry Harrop Edith Eliza Armstrong 💍 1899/1198	Bachelor Spinster	Draper	27 years 27 years	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 21 years	In the house of Charles Jones Johnson, Brown Street	99/968		24 March 1899	Revd J Lewis, Wesleyan Minister
98	24 March 1899	George Alexander Parke Amelia Annie Forrester	George Alexander Parke Amelia Annie Forrester 💍 1899/964	Bachelor Spinster	Bootmaker	21 years 19 years	Dunedin Dunedin	15 months 19 years	In St. Matthews Church	99/945	Amelia Annie Forrester, mother of minor	24 March 1899	Revd W. Curzon Siggers, Church of England Minister

These records have been automatically transcribed and must be verified using the page image (below)

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What is an Intention to Marry?

The 1854 Marriage Act required Pakeha settlers (and later Maori) to register their intention to marry from 1855. The resulting Notices of intention to marry were sent by the district registrars to the Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages and bound into large volumes, each containing a year of notices. These registers were eventually deposited with Archives New Zealand.

What information does an ItM record?

A typical Intention to Marry notice records:

the bride and groom's full names
occupation of the groom (and sometimes the bride)
their ages
district where the marriage would take place
how long they had resided in the district
Where the marriage would take place (eg, a specific church)
Who would officiate the marriage (eg, a minister)
The date of the notice and also a date when the certificate was issued. Marriages had to take place within 3 months, and usually occurred within a week or so of the certificate date.
If one of the parties was under 21, a parent who consented to their marriage was usually specified

These details can provide clues for genealogical and historical research. Knowing the date and district makes it easier to look for wedding notices in Papers Past, and the amount of time that the parties had resided in a district can offer clues to whether a person was born in NZ, or when they immigrated.

However, finding individual records in the Intentions to Marry registers was typically a slow and manual process, usually requiring an in-person visit to Archives NZ's Wellington office (during limited opening hours) and using a handwritten card catalogue index to look up individual names.

Eight years of the registers had been digitised by Archives NZ prior to 2024, but even these digital versions required the use of a manual index and usually examining several pages to locate specific records.

What is the Intentions to Marry Project?

This project aims to transcribe the New Zealand Intentions to Marry registers (from 1855 to 1925) with the assistance of new technology (AI), making the records freely available and easily searchable.

The ITM records have also been cross-referenced with the registered marriages at DIA Births, Deaths and Marriages, where possible (a small fraction of the recorded intentions to marry did not become a registered marriage).

Currently we have almost all records between 1855 and 1899. More registers are being added almost every week.

The project is led by Luke Howison, a web developer who made the free genealogical research search tool NZ Ancestor Search Helper and Archway-style Collections Search. There are also some wonderful volunteers assisting with digitising the registers.

Can I volunteer to help?

Yes, you can! You can sign up to correct errors in the transcribed records and match ITMs with registered marriages.

I am also looking for Wellington-based volunteers to help me digitise more years of the registers. I can provide lighting equipment and a 'clicker' (to trigger your phone's camera).

How is the transcription done?

There are several steps to digitising and transcribing the records:

Digitising the registers (taking clean, straight, high-quality photos)
Processing the digitised pages by straightening, cropping and sharpening the images
Transcribing each page with a combination of AI tools
Matching each ITM with a registered marriage when possible
Human verification of the transcribed information

The main LLM (AI) used are the Google Gemini Pro and Flash models, which have excellent 'Vision' capabilities, and a generous free tier.

Archives NZ has released the register years they have digitised (1865-69, 1872, 1874 and 1880) under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 license.

The Intention to Marry registers (up to 1925) are more than 100 years old, so their Crown Copyright has expired, putting them in the public domain. This also applies to any 'mechanical reproductions' (eg, pictures or photocopies) of their content without substantial alteration.

The transcribed records on this website are released under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal license, which allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, even for commercial purposes, while giving credit to the creator (NZ Intentions to Marry Project).